I Cook: Pau

I woke up one day and decided to make pau.... :S no idea why the sudden urge to do that but I followed through.

So, I went out, did my grocery shopping to get all the required ingredients, had lunch, came home and started making pau... for the very first time in my life :p... I decided to have "ju hu char" as the filling but I did not manage to get "ju hu" (cuttlefish)... so I made "bangkuang char" instead :p...

A lot of time was spent on preparing the ingredients. I cooked the pau filling and then let it cool before I working on the dough.

To my surprise, the pau turned out fine!!! I was so relieved :) ... Happy with the result, I called all my family members to announce the success... even sent them MMS of the pau :p... Hehehe... I then passed some of the pau to my friends for tasting and they had been kind enough to give me some positive feedback.

For pau dough:
- Blue Key Pau Dough (500g)
- Instant Yeast (6g)
- Sugar (100g)
- Butter/Corn Oil (50g)
- Lukewarm Water (250ml)
- A pinch of salt
- Grease proof paper cut into squares

1. Add 6g of yeast and 50g of sugar to 100ml of lukewarm water. Let the mixture set for 45 minutes.
2. Add the remaining 50g of sugar and 150ml of lukewarm water with a pinch of salt to the mixture.
3. Place 500g of flour into a big bowl. Pour the mixture into the bowl in batches. Add butter.
4. Knead for about 25 minutes.
5. Cover the bowl with a damp cloth and let the dough rise for 15 minutes.
6. Knead again, this time gently until the dough is smooth.
7. Divide the dough into balls of around 2 inches in diameter.
8. Roll out the balls into thin circles. Wrap the pau will filling and place the pau in a sheet of grease proof paper.
9. Steam pau for 10 minutes. Make sure water from the cover does not drip on the pau when opening.
10. Place pau on a piece of cloth to absorb the excess moisture.


For bangkuang char:
- Cooking Oil
- Chicken Thigh/ Pork Belly
- 6 cloves of garlic
- 500g of bangkuang (yam bean)
- 1 shallot
- 10 shitake mushroom
- 1 tablespoon of salt
- 2 tablespoon of sugar
- 2 tablespoon of pepper

1. Peel the skin of yam bean and carrot. The grate them into thin strips.
2. Slice the mushrooms into thin strips.
3. Steam the chicken thigh until cooked. Keep the stock for later use.
4. Shred the chicken and put aside.
5. Heat the wok and saute garlic and shallots until aromatic. Add in chicken and mushrooms and continue to stir fry.
5. Add in the grated yam bean and carrot with the chicken stock. Stir fry fro another 10 minutes or so until the everything is well mixed and soft.
6. Add salt, sugar and pepper to taste.